Archive for the ‘Commentary’ Category

Economics Demystified Seminar

Wednesday, February 1st, 2012

photo credit: Ferdinand Reus Saturday 11th February 10.15 for a 10.30 start. Conclude by 4pm Prosper Rooms, Lvl 1/ 27 Hardware Lane, Melb Facilitator: Raymond Makewell A Georgist seminar on the principles of economics as if society mattered. How is wealth produced? Is economics to ensure growth or to balance our rights on planet earth [...]

Housing bubble trouble: separating facts from fiction

Friday, January 27th, 2012

Reprinted from academic e-zine The Conversation In a previous article, I analysed four of the common arguments used by those who deny there is a bubble in Australia’s residential property market. The bubble deniers have employed other explanations for the largest run-up in prices in Australia’s 131 years of land sales records. Restrictive government regulations [...]

Change or suffer

Tuesday, December 13th, 2011

Australian land prices are falling. They will continue to fall until their fundamental economic link to incomes and rents are fully restored. Many with large mortgages will be crushed by these towering liabilities when their equity is erased. This claim is bitterly resisted by the politico-housing complex and most homeowners, who see the exponential land [...]

Whose side are you on, young man???

Thursday, September 22nd, 2011

photo credit: bonkedproducer The vendor-agent relationship is conducted behind closed doors, far from statistical analysis and horrid little sticky beaks like me. But fresh anecdotal evidence is coming quick and fast. The gap between vendor’s price expectations and market prices has become a gulf. Buyers ain’t paying no fancy prices. And agents have a flood [...]

Dual incomes – capitalized or decapitated

Wednesday, September 21st, 2011

photo credit: Amarand Agasi Westpac Chief Economist Ted Evans nailed his colors to the mast with his optimistic report ‘Australian housing: the bubble myth’. Evans forecasts steady prices for the next two years while household incomes rise 7 per cent pa, “setting a basis for higher house prices in the medium term”. If Westpac Bank [...]

Melbourne ‘Stale Stock’ hits 70,800

Saturday, September 17th, 2011

photo credit: Soon. 17 September 2011 MELBOURNE:- Exponential growth in the number of unsold properties overhanging the Melbourne market continues, up 18 per cent in the last month alone. “In the last five months ‘Stale Stock’ in Melbourne postcodes 3000-3207 has exploded, from 19,800 to 45,499 properties. In the wider Melbourne and environs, 70,856 houses [...]

Right of Reply – R4R in Fairfax

Monday, September 5th, 2011

Our documentary was reviewed on Friday in Real Estate 4 Ransom by Age property journalist Chris Vedelago. It was the most read Domain article nationally over the weekend. We have received hundreds of emails from people eager to see the film. We are doing our best to get it out there. In a generally positive [...]

House Prices falling at 9.5%: Don’t Buy Now!

Thursday, September 1st, 2011

photo credit: Lionoche 1 September 2011 MELBOURNE:- The RP Data‐Rismark July Hedonic Home Value Index released yesterday confirms house prices are falling at an annualized 9.5 per cent. “The new downward trend in house prices is firmly established and will proceed rapidly from here,” Prosper Australia Campaign Manager David Collyer said today. The RP Data [...]

Damn lies and Statistics

Wednesday, July 27th, 2011

The battle over auction clearance rate statistics just turned into war. SQM Research’ Louis Christopher – one of the few straight shooters in the real estate statistics game – has just issued this broadside in the SQM Research Newsletter. And he is right. We quote it in its entirety: SQM Research Newsletter dated 26 July [...]

Australia’s Wile E. Coyote Moment

Tuesday, July 5th, 2011

Poor Wile E. Coyote’s cunning plans never produced a meal. He invested everything, but always went over a cliff or was holding the exploding bomb. Warner Brothers mercilessly milked the moment he realizes his plot has failed – his defeated dreams had us children roaring with laughter. Australia’s property market is pedalling air. Buyers have [...]